A little update on us.

For those of you who have been following our blog, getting our newsletters or seeing us on facebook you might be wondering where we are and what we’re up to.

This past fall and winter have been crazy for us with visa trips, a seminary class that we hosted in Moscow, an orphanage trip we planned and then preparations for our first furlough, oh and on top of that we’ve been doing our regular ministry with the students of Moscow. Like I said, a little crazy. The dust is finally settling so I thought I’d give a brief update for those of you who were wondering and wanted to pray for us and hear from us.

We are in San Angelo, TX now and will be here until late April. Our organization gives us two months of furlough (sabbatical and fundraising time) for every year that we are on the field. We’ve been in Russia for two years so we are here for four months plus an extra one for the birth of our first child.

The first month in America was great but also busy. After praying our passports through Immigration Services in Moscow where they extended our 3 month visas into year-long visas (praise the Lord and thank you again!) we got our passports in hand and then jumped on a plane bound for the US 18 hours later. Another close call, but close calls seem to be the norm for us so we’re getting used to it. We made it to the US on Dec 15th, in time to see my youngest brother Andy graduate from CSU. Way to go Andy - we’re proud of you, bro!

 Us goofing off in Steamboat with my family

After that we had some much needed and well-spent time with my (Dave’s) family in Colorado. We celebrated the holidays together and found out on Christmas Day that our little expectant bundle of joy is going to be a boy! What a thrill that was.

After the holidays we flew down to Fort Worth to do some recruiting at the annual Red River Winter Conference. It was a great time for us to reconnect with some of our good friends on Staff with Cru and to see and catch up with the students who have come on previous Summer Projects to Moscow. We were able to join forces with those former S.P students and recruit current students to take a leap of faith and come to Moscow for the summer and maybe for a year on STINT. The recruiting was a lot of fun for us because we were able to cast a vision to the numerous students we talked to and we got to see former students talk about how great of an experience it was for them.

After the conference we stuck around the Dallas/Fort Worth area to reconnect with some of our ministry partners and to do a little fundraising. We were blessed to get to stay with some of our best friends, Jack and Emma Murphy (check out her stunning photography blog http://pherophotographyandpoetry.blogspot.com/) and their amazing little boys: Jackson and Jonah. It was a great week for us and we loved the memories we got to build with them.

Jess 6 months pregnant

After our time in Dallas, Jess and I parted ways for a couple of weeks. Jess went to San Angelo to be with her family and to rest up - the holidays, recruiting and fundraising while 7 months pregnant can be a little exhausting. I went back to Colorado to do some more fundraising and to visit with my family and friends a bit more. One of the small perks of being in Colorado these past two weeks was I got to sneak in a day at Winter Park with my family and experience a great day of skiing. The snow was soft, the sun was bright and my legs remembered how to ski like I was 22 again. The only difference from my early 20’s was that this time at the end of the day I needed a couple bags of ice, some Ibuprofen and a hot tub.  

Now we’re both back in San Angelo and will be here until a month or so after the baby is born. If you’re in West Texas we would love to see you. Shoot us an e-mail or call us. We’ll be in Colorado again in late April/early May and would love to see you if you’re there also.

For now please pray for us as we rest, raise support and prepare for life to completely change. Jess is due in 7 weeks and we’re on our way to a life-changing experience. We’re pretty excited.